Demise of the Metal Gods

[Animal]

This got brought up on another forum (and immediately went off topic) and I thought it was an interesting subject, so I'll see what our resident metalheads think about this.

 

This next decade is most likely going to see the end of all the big metal bands that we grew up with. Lets face it, Metal is now 40 years old in places and the bands that were around in the 70's are going to be running out of steam.

 

Ronnie James Dio has been diagnosed with stomach cancer, Tom Arya is undergoing back surgery and Lars Ulrich has been broken for a good few years already.

 

Black Sabbath/Heaven & Hell, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Motorhead, Slayer, Motley Crue, W.A.S.P, Metallica, Aerosmith are all going to be in their 50's at least this decade; how long can they keep touring for before it finally takes it's toll on them?

 

All these bands are legends, they have been influential to so many people and they are all great personalities with amazing showmanship and stage presence.

 

What bands are going to take their place? Personally, I can't think of many newer bands that have the 'rock star' image and huge personalities as the old guard.

 

There is so much music nowadays, and the genres have become so diluted, with the last decade seeing the likes of Black Metal, Death Metal, Grindcore, Deathcore, Metalcore, Melodic & Symphonic versions of the above, Pagan Metal, Battle Metal, Viking Metal all springing into existance. Each genre has it's icons, but nowhere near as big as what came before.

 

Metal will never disappear, but I don't think we'll ever see anything like what we did in the 70's & 80's with huge bands putting on amazing stage shows, larger than life characters and attitudes.

 

An era is drawing to a close and I think if you see an old band is touring, don't put off seing them "'cos they'll be around again" because they might not.

[Harris25]

spice girls?

[bradleyh_15]

It is unfortunate especially with the poor quality the new breed of musicians are coming up with now a days!

[scotty71]

Exactly right with your post animal.

 

Im grew up with the big four, as you know Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. I went to lots of gigs last year and got lots of footage for my youtube page as I guess like you said they are not going to be around much more. I saw Metallica twice Sheffield last Feb and Brum in March. went to Megadeth and Judas Priest at Sheffield on the Priest Feast Tour and seen Slipknot twice too, one of at the download Festival.

 

Metallica's show was awesome and Hetfield I think plus Lars and Kirk are knocking 46 so I guess they have a few more years as do Thrax (with Bush) Megadeth and I think Slayer will / might fade first. But hey what a year last year with Death Magnetic, Endgame and World Painted Blood (best in that order IMO) and Thrax still to release due to Dan Nelson leaving. I want to see all of them at this years Sonisphere... that would be great plus Download as its only 20mins away from me here.

 

I had a new experiance Saturday which was Napalm Death, Ive heard abit of there stuff over the years but the gig at the Wulfun in Wolverhampton was great \m/ but yes the demise of some of the great metal bands will be soon upon us so see them while you can. Anyway I could talk about metal all day but so I will leave you with why to see these metal gods now before they go for good.

 

My Metallica footage and audio with added desk sound from Sheffield 28/02/09

 

Metallica energy at its finest

 

CLIDGryDPoY

 

scotty71 \m/

[Thorin]

It's an interesting discussion, as you say new bands spring up but don't really have the huge status of the old ones. They'll release a couple of decent albums then fade away as people move onto other projects.

[Lbm]

It is unfortunate especially with the poor quality the new breed of musicians are coming up with now a days!

 

 

Eh?

 

Every generation of musicians brings something special through, so I feel this statement is somewhat inaccurate - Do not confuse musicians with Pop Stars

 

But back to the thread - You may well be right Animal, although there's always a kid in garge somewhere aged 14 etc, that one day will do alright, with his future metal band etc...

[Harris25]

the cheeky girls?

[Tourniquet]

We've spoken about this quite a few times at the pub and such. All our stars are getting old and some unfortunately passing away. I was born in 1981 so as an 80's child I grew up with people like The Hoff in Knight Rider, Madonna being the bad girl and Michael Jackson basically ruling the planet. Im not into all the heavy metal as such although I do like a bit, Im more of a rock/metal fan, I adore bands such as Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses and more recently Disturbed, Stone Sour and Slipknott.

 

Arnie's in his 50's and into politics, Steven Seagal goes straight to DVD, Bruce Willis finaly looks cool bald, Madonna and Michael Jackson are in the 50's (RIP MJ), even Gerri Halliwell has grown up and most bizzare my hair has decided to go AWOL from my head so yeah Im not impressed with the way the world is changing and I also agree that the latest breed of 'star' is....well shite ! Noone is going to bite the head off a bat anymore, piss on the floor and watch a mate snort it up and anyone that attempts to live that way again just looks like the pee-take they are i.e The Darkness, Steel Panther where as our stars did it and did it well. I think the 'ding-meal' stars and celebrities that are around now will be forgotten as quick as they appeared and it's going to be 'our stars' that are remembered for the pioneers and legends that they truly are.

The whole country has turned to rat shite so it seems only natural for everything to fall with it so I say raise a glass to Rage and lob ur telly with X-Crapter showing through your nearest window

[Animal]

You may well be right Animal, although there's always a kid in garge somewhere aged 14 etc, that one day will do alright, with his future metal band etc...

 

That's the thing; there are always going to be kids listening to bands and being inspired to make more music, but I think the days of 'big' metal bands are numbered.

 

Sure, there are plenty of really good bands around, but how many have the same status and more importantly, prescence as the likes of Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, etc. It's not a case of poor quality, I think it's down to the sheer volume of bands and availability of material.

 

Up to the 2000's, musicians had to work hard and be at the top of their game to net a record contract and be able to release an album. Fans also had to put some legwork in to discover new music - the tape trading scene in the 80's was testament to that - you ended up scouring the back pages of Kerrang to find obsure fanzines and tape traders offering new, exciting music (especially in the burgeoning Thrash and Death Metal scenes.

 

Now you can log into Myspace, LastFM or wherever and find hundreds of bands all producing demos, EP's and whatnot from their bedrooms and it kind of takes the fun out of discovering new music. It's just too easy.

 

There are always going to be brilliant new bands appearing in any genre, but I think some of the fire has gone, very few bands are bothered about actually putting on a show anymore. The music is still there, but the flamboyance is being lost.

 

Metal has always been about fun and wild times and I think we need more bands to step up and really put on a show for us fans.

 

I remember seeing Dio when they had huge mechanical dragons, Maiden's Live After Death & Seventh Son tours with jaw dropping stage sets, Alice Cooper performing vaudeville to a heavy metal soundtrack and Blackie Lawless throwing raw meat into the crowd while topless women were chained up inside cages - that's what we are missing, the fun, the spactacle, the over-the-top madness that is Heavy Metal.

[James]

I just wish Pantera could have still been around to carry things through

[Matt H]

It's just the way of the world.

 

You forgot Hawkwind btw Animal.

 

how long can they keep touring for before it finally takes it's toll on them?

 

its

[Rob_Mitchell]

john and edward??

[Animal]

It's just the way of the world.

 

You forgot Hawkwind btw Animal.

 

Very Zen of you Matt.

 

I forgot many bands, but yes, Hawkwind will die out this decade, too, probably.

 

I sometimes wish I was old enough to have seen the Space Ritual tour - still one of my favourite albums, that.

[Harris25]

lets not forget classics like john barnes and his football raps. These truely are lyrics for the divine.

[Matt H]

Very Zen of you Matt.

 

Another thought is, as these bands go, a lot of the major fans will be going with them. Fans are ageing too. Obviously it takes a lot less effort to press play than actually play mind.

[Ark]

I don't agree that there are no newer rock/metal acts doing big stage shows - it's just that the bands _you_ like are fading out. Examples I can think of off the top of my head are Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Staind...The shear number of bands around these days means that the finite pot of consumer cash is spread thinner and thinner, so stage shows have to be performed on a show-string budget. Bands can't afford to throw TVs out of hotel windows any more, but the bad behaviour still goes on. It's just less 'bigged up' by Kerrang and what-have-you.

[Stratty]

We still have Ozzy though (maybe not a good thing).

[Animal]

I don't agree that there are no newer rock/metal acts doing big stage shows - it's just that the bands _you_ like are fading out. Examples I can think of off the top of my head are Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Staind...The shear number of bands around these days means that the finite pot of consumer cash is spread thinner and thinner, so stage shows have to be performed on a show-string budget. Bands can't afford to throw TVs out of hotel windows any more, but the bad behaviour still goes on. It's just less 'bigged up' by Kerrang and what-have-you.

 

Mostly wrong on the first count. Yes I like the a lot of the old bands, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the newer stuff. Mastodon, Chthonic, Slipknot, Dream Theater, Municipal Waste, Gama Bomb, Amon Amarth, Lamb Of God, etc are all brilliant and if not already, destined for big things and will probably be around for a good while yet, I'm not denying that.

 

Second point is probably right. The money needed to put on a visual spectacle on the size of Iron Maiden is simply not available anymore, or at least, out of reach for the majority.

 

And wrong on the last point. It's not about wrecking hotel rooms, although that certainly was a part of the whole image in the 80's, it's about showmanship. The majority of bands are interchangeable, just a bunch of dudes on stage playing. Fred Durst standing on stage shouting 'fuck' every other word and threatening to rape 13 year old girls is NOT good showmanship, it's retarded. What we are losing is the whole theatrical aspect of being able to captivate and entertain an audience in style.

 

Maybe I am just old and jaded, I dunno.

[Animal]

We still have Ozzy though (maybe not a good thing).

 

Not much use to anyone though, is he?

 

We've still got Lemmy, too. Out of everyone, I think he might just be immortal by now.

[DanGX]

It makes me cringe, but I can completely agree with what my father says. He sez to me "Dan, there are simply nothing but shite bands these days - no one has had the stage presence and global impact that the Beatles and the bands of their age, has had." Well, the Beatles definately left their mark but not my cup of tea. Nonetheless, I can see where he's coming from and when challenged to name one damn good singer/guitarist or band, the older generation are like "Who? Nah, rubbish they can't compare to X."

 

I struggle to find a band that really bitch slaps me with their amazingness. Don't get me wrong, I am quite keen on Bush and Disturbed, off the top of my head, but the other thing I find is all the bands really lack stage quality. I've been to so many gigs of major bands (and I hate to admit it, a few boybands - girlfriends made me - otherwise no sex!) where the quality of the performance sounds like something from a karaoke cafe. And to completely flip it, I've had a better time in front of tribute bands than some well known acts. I think part of the problem, as identified by Animal is so many groups would prefer to compartmentalise themselves in a sub-group of metal and be a big fish in a small pond than go up against the true gods of metal.

 

Anyway, that's my two pence.

[Animal]

I think you've hit on a big part of the problem. The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Elvis, The Stones and on through Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, Metallica, etc were all groundbreaking bands. No-one had seen or heard their like before.

 

There isn't much musical ground left untapped anymore, not helped by bands creating absurd genres to try and set themselves apart from the others. The tribute bands are more enjoyable because they are actually TRYING to create the whole atmosphere rather than just getting up and playing some songs.

[Snooze]

Yes - you have to remember the part that technology makes in creating new music.

 

The early bands (well - mostly 2nd wave - not typically the real pioneers) who used electric guitars, synthesizers and samplers, for example were the ones who tended to genuinely create new "genres" of music.

 

However, once we got to the position of high-quality sampling available to everyone down to the home studio level in the 1990s, it was suddenly possible for anyone to create literally any sound they wanted to. I genuinely agree with you that this means there simply won't be any truly new music genres.

 

The only technologies which could maybe be considered new would be things like using multichannel, directed sounds (eg. making use of a full surround sound image), etc. But I can only see technologies like that slightly changing the way music is delivered, not changing the music itself (I have a copy of The Flaming Lips, "Zaireeka", which is quite an interesting layered music experiment).

 

The only other thing I could think of doing would be breaking away from traditional western music into something microtonal, but plenty of people have tried that in the past with literally zero mainstream acknowledgement.

 

As such I agree that it's going to be nearly impossible for anyone new to truly create an image as big as those that have gone before. And I don't think it's limited to "metal". You can say the same about nearly any other genre - electronica, pop music, rap music, etc. There are big names in all these areas who are unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.

 

That said - it does come in waves - there's always space to revive out-of-fashion styles. Oasis (I liked their first album!) did a pretty job of making themselves known without actually bringing anything new to the music scene, for example.

[Tourniquet]

But do singers or bands need to bring anything new or reinvent the wheel ? I think so long as the music is good it doesn't matter what style it is or who performs it. There are only two types of music - good and bad. If I had to name my fave genre it would be Rock/Metal BUT my favourite artist of all time is Michael Jackson - no one can come near him, there is no possible arguement to bring against him in the entertainment field, yet, I also love music from Corey Taylor, Andrea Bocelli, Beethoven, Cliff Richard, LL Cool J, Backstreet Boys, Dope...the list and variety is endless... what Im trying to say is being 'another' rock band isn't a bad thing - you would be stupid not to sign Pantera just because you already have Aerosmith for example just as it would be not to sign Mariah because you already have Whitney.

 

Having said that I think the diluted happy meal pap that is mainstream now is never going to produce the legends of the past which is Animals arguement and I think that's because it doesn't take hard work or even talent to become famous or get to number one anymore. Music has gone the same way as football now - all about the money and bollox to everything else, the actual act is just a necessity to get the prize unfortunately.

 

I think our biggest offereing is Robbie Williams atm or maybe Muse - good on them but do nothing for me personally and I wont be holding my breath for them to outsell Thriller or do the largest ever world tour/eat bats...whatever

[Animal]

Bands don't need to invent new genres or sounds to become popular, what I was saying was that the bands Dan's dad, and in turn, we regard as legends WERE inventing new styles of music and as such became far bigger (and certainly more legendary) than the vast majority of bands that came after.

 

There are still massive bands now that are playing the same styles of music and things do run in cycles. Currently there is a Thrash Metal revival going on with the likes of Mucicipal Waste, Gama Bomb, Mutant & Evile. These bands are not playing anything new and are taking a musical style that predominantly ran between '83-'89 and pretty much disappeared. As such, I don't think anyone will reach the same standing as Metallica has done.

 

I also don't think that you can apply the money theory across the board. Certainly that is very much the case for pop music, and probably some of the more mainstream metal bands, but for a lot of them, making huge amounts of money simply isn't on the agenda. We're edging into another discussion completely, but the music industry is changing and downloading is now the norm, legal or not. This scares the shit out of the record companies and the pop stars, but is more welcomed by the metal scene. I think it was Municipal Waste that said "this isn't the music industry, it's the T-shirt printing industry" and that's quite true. Even the 'big' metal bands make sod all money from their record sales; the best portion of their income is through touring and merchandise sales. Bands are already starting to offer their albums for free with the option of buying limited edition/specially packaged CD's and vinyl. I've read a very good discussion on this, I'll see if I can find the link.

[Animal]

Slightly off-topic, but an interesting read.

 

This oft-referenced article is from the early '90s, and originally appeared in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll magazine. While some of the information and figures listed here are dated, it is still a useful and informative article.

The Problem With Music

 

And a more up to date take on the music industry...

 

Hi, I’m Sean McGrath, and I’m in the death metal band Impaled. We’ve been asked to do a “blog” by Decibel, and though I usually shy away from such things, or more accurately back away from them while forming the sign of the cross with my fingers, I thought it might be a good chance to lay bare a few well kept secrets about the music industry to those young and impressionable musicians who might have been fooled into thinking that signing a contract with a major label is a great honor and privilege.

 

In this day and age, record labels can do very little for you that you cannot do yourself with some hard work, talent, and ingenuity. Let’s assume that you already have talent. That cuts out seventy five percent of you. You can leave. The rest of you, please read on. This is the standard operating procedure for most labels:

 

Let’s pretend there’s a young death metal band. Let’s call this band… I don’t know…Injected Feces. That’s pretty good. (It’s copyrighted, so don’t get any ideas.) So Injected Feces has been around for a year or so, played some good shows, garnered some good reviews, done a decent demo, and gets a little interest from some labels. “Awesome!” thinks Injected Feces, “We’re going to MAKE IT!”. They pick the biggest and best label and sign the contract without having a pro look at it. Who needs lawyers? That’s not metal! And hey, the label is offering them $1,500! That’s four times what the demo cost! Sounds pretty good so far. Injected Feces goes into the studio and they just squeak by on the 1,500 bucks, but the finished product comes out great (as great as it can coming from Injected Feces). The promotion department tells the band this is the best thing they’ve heard since Colostomy Catheter (also copyrighted), and they’re sure to sell 40,000 copies. Wow!

 

Cut to a year later. Injected Feces has taken three months out of their lives to tour the country to promote the album. They had to buy the cds from the label at 6 bucks a pop, but it was worth it. Man, did they sell! At the same time, jobs have been lost. Relationships have been strained or ruined. But the band is doing great! They sold thousands of cds! They must be in the chips, right? I mean, they were mentioned in Decibel and Metal Maniacs! All the same, they wonder why they haven’t gotten a financial statement from the label. Ever.

 

They ask the label to provide a statement and after and few months of cajoling they finally get one. Holy moly, they sold 6,000 CDs! There is much rejoicing. But wait, what’s this? The label keeps 9 dollars of every cd sold and gives the band 65 cents per cd sold? Well, ok. I mean, they DID put all those ads in those glossy magazines… and that’s still almost 6,000 bucks! Hold on… They also charged for the cost of the ads out of the band’s royalties? And they pro rated the phone bill and internet bill and rent and took that from the band’s royalties? And they own the rights to the t-shirt designs?! And on top of that, they’ve been trading Injected Feces CDs for other CDs made by bands from other labels, and not reporting those traded CDs as sales?

 

Hmmm…

 

What a disappointment. Injected Feces only sold 6,000 copies. Sounds like a lot to the band, but it’s well below the 40,000 estimated. I guess they should be dropped from the label. Not profitable enough. After an initial investment of 1,500 dollars, they only raked in 54,000 dollars for the label. The good thing is, the label owns Injected Feces’ entire catalog. They signed it away! The material will never see the light of day again if the label does not will it.

 

Now let’s look at the other option.

 

Injected Feces has a bit of a following. They put out a demo. They do as many interviews in fanzines as they can. They try to get on shows with every touring band they can and make connections with the members and the promoters. They hook up with some out of state bands, do some split releases, talk their way onto some compilation CDs and into some bigger magazines, do a few DIY tours, have a decent website that offers free downloads of their music and interesting artwork. Injected Feces now has a name. They scrape together three thousand dollars, record a CD, and press it themselves. They sell 1,000 CDs on a DIY tour at 10 dollars a pop. 10,000 dollars goes to paying for gas, strings, a new tire to replace the one that blew out, a new guitar to replace the one that broke when that dude moshed into it, your drummer’s rent when he’s short, flyers, beer, a new banner, and not one fucking cent goes to some weasely prick in an office telling them how awesome they are.

 

Option number two is the future of underground metal.